This session explores how GIS technologies are applied to diverse environmental and urban challenges through community-engaged research, digital visualization, spatial modeling, and citizen science. Presenters will examine how geographic visualizations support integrated community planning, analyze friction landscapes to identify ecological pinch-points, and evaluate the spatial dynamics of transit systems and environmental (in)justice. Other contributions focus on mapping socioecological territories in Brazil through cybercartography and analyzing intra-urban heat islands using citizen-generated climate data. Together, these presentations highlight the evolving role of GIS as both an analytical and participatory tool for understanding and shaping environments.

• 3:00 PM
  Analytical cartography using LiDAR data
  Andrew A. Millward, Toronto Metropolitan University

• 3:15 PM
  Creating an urban activity atlas for 300 North American cities
  Jeff Allen, School of Cities, University of Toronto

• 3:25 PM
  Mapping Environmental (In)Justice: Bridging Community Knowledge and Spatial Analysis
  Asana Farshchi, University of Toronto

• 3:40 PM
  Intra-city variability of the Urban Heat Island phenomenon: evidence from citizen science sensing
  Raja Sengupta, McGill University

• 3:55 PM
  Mapping rail transit and population density for 250 cities
  Jeff Allen, School of Cities, University of Toronto

• 4:05 PM
  Canadian Government GIS Data: For Professionals and the Public
  Christopher Macdonald Hewitt, Wilfrid Laurier University / University of Western Ontario